Lahat ng Kabanata ng BOUND IN IRON AND INK: Kabanata 61 - Kabanata 70

THE EDGE OF SURRENDER Kirrily”Rindy” Cross​The heavy iron-hinged door of Jaxson’s quarters clicked shut behind me. In the absolute quiet of the room, the sound echoed like a gunshot.​I didn't move. My spine remained pressed flat against the cool wood, my hands flat at my sides, fingers digging into the seams of my jeans. The air in here was thick, heavy with the scent of cedar, rain, and the underlying, intoxicating musk that was purely him. For months, we danced around this. For months, we had thrown daggers with our eyes, hidden behind sharp insults, and built walls so high neither of us could see the top.​But tonight, the walls were crumbling into dust.​Jaxson stood by the window, his back to me. The moonlight cut through the glass, casting stark, silver shadows across the broad line of his shoulders. He was still wearing his dark combat shirt, though it was untucked, his posture uncharacteristically rigid. He didn't turn around when the door clicked, but I saw the slight flin

STATIC AND SHADOWSKirrily”Rindy” Cross​The ceramic mugs slipped from Jaxson’s hands.​They hit the floorboards with a violent crash, sending a spray of hot coffee and jagged black shards across the room. He didn’t flinch at the noise. His eyes were locked on the glowing white screen of the burner phone by my feet, reading the text message that had just stopped my heart.​...no idea you were the one who issued the kill order on her sister...​All the warmth, all the absolute, mind-altering safety I had felt in his bed just ten minutes ago evaporated. My blood turned to freon. My instincts, honed by years of running and looking over my shoulder, screamed at me to move. To grab the heavy iron lamp off the nightstand. To fight. To run.​"Kirrily," Jaxson started, taking a step forward.​"Don't move!" My voice ripped out of my throat, harsh and unrecognizable. I scrambled backward, my bare feet slipping on the polished wood until my spine hit the cold plaster of the wall. I pulled his ov

ECHOES FROM THE DEATH Kirrily”Rindy” Cross​The darkness was absolute. It didn't just fill the room; it suffocated it, pressing against my eyes like a physical weight. The sudden silence, stripped of the heavy hum of the cooling fans, made the blood rushing in my ears sound like a waterfall.​"I was wondering how long it would take you to find that file, Kirrily."​Marcus’s voice filtered through the ceiling intercom, distorted by a heavy layer of static, but dripping with a smug, sickly satisfaction.​Before I could even process the sheer terror of his words, a massive hand grabbed the back of my tactical vest. Jaxson ripped me out of the rolling chair so hard my feet barely touched the ground. He hauled me backward, shoving me roughly against the freezing concrete wall, and immediately stepped in front of me. His broad body became a human shield, blocking me from the heavy steel door.​The sound of metal sliding against metal pierced the dark. Jaxson had drawn his sidearm.​"Marcus

THE EMPTY GRAVE​Kirrily”Rindy” Cross​The silence in the room was a living, breathing thing. It pressed against my eardrums, thick and suffocating, heavier than the cold rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling windows of Jaxson’s study.​I stood frozen near the massive mahogany desk, my fingers gripping the edge so hard my knuckles were stark white. A single, jagged piece of paper lay innocent and unassuming on the polished wood between us. An invoice. A medical transfer log. A horrifying, undeniable truth wrapped in neat, bureaucratic ink.​Patient transferred to Level 4 Secure Facility. Status: Comatose, Stable.​Beneath that, a date from three years ago. The exact date I had stood in the freezing sleet, staring at a closed casket, weeping until I had no voice left, mourning a sister I thought was rotting in the earth.​And beneath the date, the authorization signature.​J. Lawson.​"Kirrily."​His voice was a low, ragged scrape against the quiet. Jaxson stood across the room by

THE ARCHITECTURE OF A LIE​ Jaxson pov​The floorboards in the hallway have exactly three dead spots. I know them intimately, just as I know the exact tilt of the blinds that keeps the streetlamp glare off her face at night, and the precise temperature she needs the shower to be before she stops shivering. For two years, my entire existence has been a study in the architecture of Kirrily’s survival.​But as I step out of the bedroom, leaving the shadows of the hallway for the harsh, unforgiving light of the living room, I don't bother avoiding the creaking boards. There is no point in stealth anymore. The ghost is standing in the center of the room.​Maeve.​She looks exactly the way the file photos depicted her before she vanished, down to the defensive slouch of her shoulders. But I barely registered with my sister. My eyes lock entirely on Kirrily.​She is holding the photograph. Her hands are shaking so violently the glossy paper produces a sickening, rapid snapping sound in the s